EricSLine

I may go on the "naughty list" but I think we're putting way too much thought into the sound system. I love the B&O and I love my music. The B&O sounded great from the first song I played and with every track since then. No regrets. I really don't know what else to say other than it is your choice whether or not to get it with your Audi.

The G Man

I think the big queation is rather or not the B&O is worth the $800 over the Audi sound system. For most people, the Audi system is good enough, but for a few owners, evern the B&O system is not good enough.

quality_sound

I think it's all about exposure. Everyone thought their first car was fast too. It's easy to be happy with mediocrity if you haven't experienced excellence.

Some people aren't audiophiles, and some just want background noise. If the money is worth it to you that's fine, but my argument has been, and will continue to be, that B&O isn't good. It IS better than the base audio, however.

The G Man

I can certainly agree with that, it really depends on what you are compare speed or sound quality with. The B&O system in the last gen A8 was much better than the B&O in the Q5, but at 10 times the cost. I also had a Mark Levison system on a Lexus GX470 that sounded pretty good. Of course, none of these system will sound good when compare to a high quality aftermarket audio system.

quality_sound

Absolutely! The A8 sounded GREAT! I think it needed more power, but I'm a power ***** and I LOVE dynamics. Tonally, it was very, very hard to fault the A8's B&O setup.

spijun

Absolutely agree that the sound quality is good
I was disappointed strength or loudness. B&O system is 505W and the Audi sound system with 180W, which is at maximum 30% louder than the B & O system?????? Who does not believe a comparable audio systems.
How is it possible that the Audio sound system with 180W louder than the B & O from 505W ?????

ELEVENS

Not sure what your getting at here.. "Good" is about as subjective as it gets. It's not measurable, unless you want to count smiles and thumbs up. Everybody's taste is different. An audio purist wants accuracy. My kids like enhanced bass. Rappers like ridiculously enhanced and thumping lower bass. And so it goes.

Are you confusing EQ with noise canceling? For example, if you have a 3KHz noise source, EQ-ing the sound coming out of the stereo speakers isn't going to silence it but noise-canceling might. Theoretically, sophisticated feedback-driven noise-canceling might be able to overcome the constantly changing background noise in a car but not on a practical basis, at least not yet. Most listeners simply turn up the volume so high that the signal overwhelms the ambient noise. They think, "Hmm, it sounds "better" turned up, I can hear details better." What the listener has done is drowned out the background noise (increased S/N).

The G Man

I am not sure if I agree with that. The B&O system can play louder music without distortion when compare to the Audi system, but you are right, the hugh difference in wattage doesnt reflect the difference between the two system as far as loudness. For example, the Bose system in the A6 has only 255 watts and it sounds better and louder than the B&O system in the Q5 which has 505 watts.

quality_sound

If you have a system that's accurate anything you play on it will sound as the person that mastered it intended. Yes, taste is definitely subjective, but when comparing audio the only truly quantifiable aspects are ones you can measure. Does a French Horn sound like a French Horn? Does a Piano sound like a Piano. So singers sound like themselves? Accuracy can be measured, so that's what I look at when comparing systems. Is B&O more accurate than the base system. Yes. Does that mean that's ideal? No, only that it's closer than the base setup. That's all I'm saying.

No, I know the difference. It's very easy to measure the shape of the noise in a moving car. Once you have that you can counter it with EQ. Now, that would require you to have a setting for stopped and one for either different speeds or a worst case scenario version, but you can counter road noise. to a point it's not a real issue.

I do agree about drowning out the road noise. Really, that's all we're ever doing in any environment, including in the home.

I can't WAIT for the day when DSP can truly compensate for road noise. Either that or cars finally are quiet enough for it to be a non-issue.

quality_sound

Most of that is because they sent WAY too much power to drivers that don't need it. Most people will never need more than 10 Watts on their tweeters and mids. Ever. You want the bulk of you power in the midbass. Unless you're a basshead and want to wake neighbors up, you don't need a ton of power on the sub(s) either.

Another problem could be the crossover settings. If the sub to midbass transition is too high and you have a weak sub you'll run into the same problem. The perception of volume comes from the midbass region and when that's weak people will keep turningi it up and up and up and it will sound bad.

As I've already said, I'm a power *****. I LOVE to really get on it and I've never needed more than 150 Watts on my tweeters and mids, but I will tend to at least double that to my midbasses and I've gone as high as 500 Watts per midbass. For the sub it will depend on the number, size, efficiency, and enclosure type. I've never needed more than 1000 Watts total on my subs. Having said all that, this setup, even using horribly inefficient Dynaudio drivers, got STUPID loud. You could cut that by 2/3 and still be pretty damned loud.

I think B&O made some mistakes with this system. And that sucks because they were nice enough to toss 8s in the doors but then they used odd-sized mids making upgrades difficult. I think some Dayton RS100s will fit in the OEM locations. A much larger mid in the center channel would have kicked ***.